At a press conference on Wednesday, Donald Trump told the nation that CNN is “fake news”. That stunning declaration is part of a long-term strategy, honed by the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler, to discredit information sources that keep the citizenry informed about reality. For his most ardent followers, Trump’s statement just confirms what they already wanted to believe because so often the man they hold in such high regard is shown by the mainstream media to be a pathological liar, a misogynist who treats women as objects to be used for pleasure only, a racist who betrays our most basic American values, and a narcissistic bully who uses intimidation to cow people and bend them to his will.
Who wants to believe THAT?
And let us be very clear: Donald Trump isn’t the only person benefiting from that desire to be shielded from reality. Here in Michigan, for example, it’s much easier for the people who vote for Republicans to pretend that the Flint Water Crisis was created by Democrats, that the poor school children in our urban areas, and most especially Detroit, deserve to go to school in rat-infested, mold-shrouded classrooms, and that the reasons behind Republicans controlling every aspect of our state government have nothing to do with 17 years of dedicated and determined gerrymandering. That same thing is happening in every red and purple state in the country.
That’s why websites like Eclectablog are going to be such an important asset to democracy in the new era of disinformation and deliberate ignorance we are now woefully in. In addition to our own reporting and analysis, we amplify the important stories to make sure they aren’t overwhelmed and overrun by those for whom the shouting of “fake news” is a sufficient response to hearing things they don’t want to believe about the world they live in.
We need your help. All the regular contributors to Eclectablog are paid and we have bills to pay to maintain the web servers, to protect us from attacks on the site, and to keep Eclectablog up and loading quickly when we get slammed with viral traffic. Not only that, we want to expand, adding new writers, improving our podcast recording equipment, and upgrading the site on a regular basis. We don’t run ads (other than those that are served with the Disqus commenting system.) Instead, we count on the community of readers to support our efforts with a little money from time to time.
If you are able to help support us financially, we would be most grateful. There are two ways to help. First, you can use the handy PayPal forms at the top of the right sidebar to make a one-time donation via Paypal or to set up a monthly donation. Second, you can send a check (which avoids Paypal taking out a percentage of your donation) to Chris Savage, P.O. Box 32, Dexter, MI 48130. Please make the check payable to “Eclectablog”.
To sweeten the pot this time, for every donation of $75 or more, we will send you my wife Anne’s incredible photomosaic of Barack Obama titled “Out of Many, We are One“. This image, created out of the faces of people attending his rallies in 2008, appeared as a two-page spread in TIME magazine in their January 2009 Person of the Year issue and has been on the cover of magazines and books around the world:
If you want a closer look, head over HERE where you can zoom in on the individual faces.
Thank you for your continued support.
[CC Trump image credit: Thomas Hawk | Flickr]
